How to Install Inlets on OpenBSD

In this tutorial, we will take you through the steps to install Inlets on OpenBSD using the official Inlets installation guide.

Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have the following:

  • An OpenBSD installation with root access
  • A terminal or SSH client for accessing the OpenBSD server

Step 1: Install Inlets

Inlets can be installed on OpenBSD using the inlets-pro package from pkg_add.

  1. Connect to your OpenBSD server with root access using a terminal or SSH client.
  2. Type the following command to install the inlets-pro package:
$ doas pkg_add inlets-pro

This will download and install the latest version of Inlets on your OpenBSD system.

Step 2: Configure Inlets

In order to use Inlets, you need to configure the client and server.

Inlets Server Configuration

To set up the Inlets server on OpenBSD, follow these steps:

  1. Create a folder to store the Inlets configuration files:
$ mkdir -p /etc/inlets/
  1. Create a configuration file for the Inlets server:
$ touch /etc/inlets/server.yaml
  1. Open the configuration file and add the following content:
token: <insert-your-token-here>
inletsPro: true
autoTls: true
  1. Save and close the file.

Inlets Client Configuration

To configure the Inlets client on OpenBSD, follow these steps:

  1. Create a folder to store the Inlets configuration files:
$ mkdir -p ~/.inlets/
  1. Create a configuration file for the Inlets client:
$ touch ~/.inlets/client.yaml
  1. Open the configuration file and add the following content:
token: <insert-your-token-here>
inletsPro: true
upstream: <insert-your-upstream-address-here>

Replace <insert-your-token-here> with the token you have obtained from the Inlets control panel, and <insert-your-upstream-address-here> with the address of the upstream server you want to connect to through Inlets.

  1. Save and close the file.

Step 3: Start Inlets

To start Inlets on OpenBSD, follow these steps:

  1. Start the Inlets server:
$ inlets-pro server --config-file /etc/inlets/server.yaml
  1. In another terminal window, start the Inlets client:
$ inlets-pro client --config-file ~/.inlets/client.yaml

Once the client is connected to the server, you can use it to access the upstream server through Inlets.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully installed and configured Inlets on OpenBSD, and can now use it to securely tunnel traffic between the client and server.